The guy in the front, left seat gets the ticket. The case is heard in traffic court. The judge doesn't care about any of this self-driving nonsense. $50 fine plus court costs plus witness fees. Next case.

If there's nobody in the front seat, here's how I'd set it up. The robot car finds an active GTA session on the net and hands over control to the human player, who thinks it's a new scene in the game. When the hubcaps stop rolling the car disconnects. The player had no criminal intent and could not be tracked down if he did.

If you spend the evening at the bar, get well and truly liquored up and then take your self driving car through a DUI checkpoint (with you lolling in the passenger seat) is that a DUI? I suspect you would still get charged.

Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

The entire article:-Well, this presents an interesting dilemma. What happens when police pull over a car driven by a computer, as the case maybe in Washington, D.C.? I can't really find any news stories about this incident, but I would love to hear what the hell the cops had to say and what the human passenger had to say and if the Google car ended up going all HAL9000 on the police and refused to pull over. So many questions!-Yes, so many questions.

DammitIForgotMyLogin:Assuming that the only people who'd be able to afford a driverless car at the start would be the ultrarich, i'm going to go with "nobody gets a ticket, but the officer involved gets suspended"

Officer suspended for that? You're hilarious. It's not like he falsified information on a warrant and shot an unarmed man in the bathroom. Link

I'm pretty sure that the answers to all these questions were hashed out before the self driving google car ever got plates and insurance.

/did the car go all hal9000 and refuse to pull over?//did the police have to call in superman and robocop to stop the car?///was the google car delivering neural network learning computer chips from Cyberdyne?////we're just asking questions

We're already working on lane departure warning (cameras in the mirrors track the lines that form your lane and keep the car in it). We also are working on comatose/not paying attention driver detection (camera in the dash watches your eyes and where they looking.

So far in the first generation basically you lean over to get your coffee or fiddle with your radio. We detect your eyes aren't looking at the road ahead. Your hand drifts on the steering wheel abit and the car starts to slip out of its lane. The car detects all this and puts itself back in the center of the lane before you hit anyone. Car beeps angrily at you since sales won't let us use the onboard voice to say "Pay attention or start taking the bus, dumbass". DENSO has a production or near production ready model of that depending on how much you trust their sales reps.

The next step is when you pass the fark out. Sensors note you've passed out, are having a seizure, or are dead. Cameras figure out where the shoulder is and get you over to it. The car holds its lane until it sees a break in traffic and then goes for the shoulder. OnStar dials 911 as well.

In turn this leads to the prototype where the the cop comes up behind you, sends a directional radio signal right at your rear windshield and the vehicle pulls over. The idea here is if you have automated long haul trucks (which is scary) or as a rescue measure. Say you pass out in beltway traffic. So you're there slumped behind the wheel and there is no way in hell the car's dinky little computer is figuring out how to get across six lanes of 70 mph traffic and onto the shoulder (at least not yet). So the car calls 911, a cop catches up, fires the radio signal and then 'walks' the car over to the shoulder. The other idea would be the cop catching up and then working with an OnStar tech to walk you over to the shoulder. We're somewhat afraid of giving the police the ability to input external commands into the vehicle at will. It could be misused in the form of:

1. Some kids at MIT manage to duplicate the device to input signals, start selling on the blackmarket.2. Bob the Rapist Cop forces the co-eds to pull over on the dark, empty country road, instead of a mile up at the road at the gas station.3. Larry the Rapist buys that device the MIT kids made.

On the other hand the remote "move to the shoulder NOW" button has some potential for you assholes that don't get out of the way of firetrucks and ambulances.

Google cars though have someone sitting in the seat though and ready to take manual control.

Ennuipoet:If you spend the evening at the bar, get well and truly liquored up and then take your self driving car through a DUI checkpoint (with you lolling in the passenger seat) is that a DUI? I suspect you would still get charged.

Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

It'd be great for blind people, and people unable to drive due to age or infirmity. They'd also make handy unmanned vehicles to send out with pizza deliveries, pick up your online order from the hardware store, etc. Once these exist, there'll be a million things they can be useful for. Probably number 2 will be a terrorist loading one up with explosives and directing it at some target in a city.

Ennuipoet:Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

Almost all accidents are caused by some form of driver failure. Not paying attention, driving drunk, distracted by the cellphone... whatever. And computers potentially have WAY better reaction times than us. The sooner we can take the driving skills of us unreliable, squishy, meat creatures out of the equation the better.

Intrigued, I contacted the folks Google to see if they could offer any insights. As it turns out, the reality of the situation was more mundane: The police had simply seen the self-driving car parked on the street and were curious to know more about the technology.

Ennuipoet:Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

I'm in my 40s, and I'm legally blind; I have lost all of my peripheral vision so even riding a bike is out of the question. I am very much looking forward to having a car that can drive me around. This technology is a very pleasant surprise; even a couple of years ago I would never have expected to see something like this so soon.

This will also give all the elderly baby boomers an option other than either giving up their freedom or plowing through the farmer's market.

mongbiohazard:Ennuipoet: Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

Almost all accidents are caused by some form of driver failure. Not paying attention, driving drunk, distracted by the cellphone... whatever. And computers potentially have WAY better reaction times than us. The sooner we can take the driving skills of us unreliable, squishy, meat creatures ugly sacks of mostly water out of the equation the better.

Ennuipoet:If you spend the evening at the bar, get well and truly liquored up and then take your self driving car through a DUI checkpoint (with you lolling in the passenger seat) is that a DUI? I suspect you would still get charged.

Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

What about a car that meets you at the door when you walk out of work, or that lets you take a nap on a cross country drive, or that goes and parks itself after dropping you off at the mall, or that drives people who usually can't drive around (epileptics, blind people, etc.) Or how about one that lets you deal with the screaming kid in the back seat, or that picks your kids up after school? How about a long haul freight truck that doesn't need a driver? Or vehicles that can drive close enough to other self-driving vehicles on the highway to take advantage of drafting (which can save huge amounts of fuel!) Or taxi cabs that you flag down with your phone that accept your credit card and let you click on a map, all without a driver? Same for buses. How about when you need to get to the hospital and you are too sick to drive but not sick enough for an ambulance? How about to pick your parents up from the airport at 3 am? Cop cars that let the cop driving pay attention to what's going on on the sidewalks instead of just the road (since as the bugs get worked out things like tickets will be much less of a priority.) How about specially designed delivery trucks with separate PIN locked compartments that call you and let you know they are about to make a delivery to where you are. You go out, see a light blinking over one compartment, enter the PIN you've been messaged, open it up and get your Amazon purchase, or that sweater from your grandma, or maybe even a pizza you ordered (and the delivery truck doesn't expect to be tipped.) How about a car that drives by the distraction on the side of the road without rubbernecking? (You can still rubberneck, but your car will keep traffic flowing.) How about a car that can monitor more vehicles than you can, signal to another car that it needs to move over and not have to rely on the kindness of another motorvehiclist? And these all really have nothing to do with what Google wants it for. They want you surfing the web on your commute. How many millions of man-hours of labor are lost driving? Sure, on a day when it's sunny, you are in no hurry, you are in your sports car on a winding road, it's nice to drive. That's not the conditions most driving occurs in.

Reliable self driving car technology, when it's adopted on the mass level, will be huge.

mongbiohazard:Ennuipoet: Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

Almost all accidents are caused by some form of driver failure. Not paying attention, driving drunk, distracted by the cellphone... whatever. And computers potentially have WAY better reaction times than us. The sooner we can take the driving skills of us unreliable, squishy, meat creatures out of the equation the better.

We're decades away from having a fully self driving mass production car. When they are done they'll also be done with cameras, not Google's little radar dome things (imagine rush hour with all those cars putting out radar signals and basically jamming each other with all that electronic noise).

Instead what you do is driver assistance. Lane detection, compensation for slowed reflexes. The low hanging fruit like side swipes, read ending, pedestrians and deer that jump out in front of you. An object we can detect and order the vehicle to respond to by maintain its lane or hitting the brakes.

However there are all kinds of problems. Most of the self driving prototypes have massive trouble in construction zones where lanes are detoured. For example the local guys are doing some cold patching so they are oth there with a flagman and a truck, signalling you to use the shoulder to get around the cold patching operation. The current self driving cars go "Oh fark no,that's the shoulder, we don't drive there" and lock up. Basically self driving cars would force construction crews to spend more time setting up very clearly marked routes as opposed to having Bob stand there with the orange flag and gesture. In fact they'll often lock up even in long term detours because the cars will still detect the old lines that weren't completely painted over. So the car's computer sees old lines and new lines and has a fit. Basically we need a whole industry standard for construction detours as they relate to self driving cars and the DOTs aren't thrilled at that additional expense. Also a lot of side streets actually aren't painted and don't have curbs. That messes with the cars too in some cases.

There are also things like programming the car to respond when the semi beside you blows its tire out and all kinds of edge cases.

We'll have heavily assisted driving within the decade. Rear end accidents, side swipes, etc are going to become extremely rare. However fully self driving is limited by the cost of the system (both per unit and what the whole self driving AI costs us to develop) and by the fact we need to overhaul the roads to some standard (or go insane programming for edge cases).

Ennuipoet:If you spend the evening at the bar, get well and truly liquored up and then take your self driving car through a DUI checkpoint (with you lolling in the passenger seat) is that a DUI? I suspect you would still get charged.

Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

In turn this leads to the prototype where the the cop comes up behind you, sends a directional radio signal right at your rear windshield and the vehicle pulls over.

Police have been asking for remote kill for years. Now they know they can get remote kill and the car doors lock and the cop waits for backup or to finish his donut). Next step the car drives itself to the sheriff's office, turns off, locks the doors, and when the office opens up on Monday morning somebody comes out to process whatever is left inside.

NorKnOAd:The entire article:-Well, this presents an interesting dilemma. What happens when police pull over a car driven by a computer, as the case maybe in Washington, D.C.? I can't really find any news stories about this incident, but I would love to hear what the hell the cops had to say and what the human passenger had to say and if the Google car ended up going all HAL9000 on the police and refused to pull over. So many questions!-Yes, so many questions.

And I really appreciate the minimal effort subby put in to transform it into a witty headline. I usually have to consult one of my students for that level of laziness. Nice work everyone!

Do you ticket a stuck red light? Do you ticket a bridge that collapses? Do you ticket pot holes? Do you ticket people whose cars catch fire because of defects? It becomes a design problem, not a criminal problem.

We're already working on lane departure warning (cameras in the mirrors track the lines that form your lane and keep the car in it). We also are working on comatose/not paying attention driver detection (camera in the dash watches your eyes and where they looking.

So far in the first generation basically you lean over to get your coffee or fiddle with your radio. We detect your eyes aren't looking at the road ahead. Your hand drifts on the steering wheel abit and the car starts to slip out of its lane. The car detects all this and puts itself back in the center of the lane before you hit anyone. Car beeps angrily at you since sales won't let us use the onboard voice to say "Pay attention or start taking the bus, dumbass". DENSO has a production or near production ready model of that depending on how much you trust their sales reps.

The next step is when you pass the fark out. Sensors note you've passed out, are having a seizure, or are dead. Cameras figure out where the shoulder is and get you over to it. The car holds its lane until it sees a break in traffic and then goes for the shoulder. OnStar dials 911 as well.

In turn this leads to the prototype where the the cop comes up behind you, sends a directional radio signal right at your rear windshield and the vehicle pulls over. The idea here is if you have automated long haul trucks (which is scary) or as a rescue measure. Say you pass out in beltway traffic. So you're there slumped behind the wheel and there is no way in hell the car's dinky little computer is figuring out how to get across six lanes of 70 mph traffic and onto the shoulder (at least not yet). So the car calls 911, a cop catches up, fires the radio signal and then 'walks' the car over to the shoulder. The other idea would be the cop catching up and then working with an OnStar tech to walk you over to the shoulder. We're somewhat afraid of giving the police the ability to input external commands into the vehicle at will. It could be misused in the form of:

1. Some kids at MIT manage to duplicate the device to input signals, start selling on the blackmarket.2. Bob the Rapist Cop forces the co-eds to pull over on the dark, empty country road, instead of a mile up at the road at the gas station.3. Larry the Rapist buys that device the MIT kids made.

On the other hand the remote "move to the shoulder NOW" button has some potential for you assholes that don't get out of the way of firetrucks and ambulances.

Google cars though have someone sitting in the seat though and ready to take manual control.

So uh... what happens when the driver's wearing sunglasses?

What I keep wishing is if the windows would auto tint, best using some sort of LCD technology (so if the car ever died you could then see out still)

I love how people are amazed by transportation that drives itself, doesn't require user interaction, permits you to read, drive, drink, whatever while you are whisked to you magical destination. We'll spend millions of dollars to develop it. When it is developed, We'll each spend thousands of dollars to use it.

But, don't ever suggest that public transit might do the same. Cause, that's communism. Even though, that's where something like this woud be really useful and most likely end up. No, we'd rather act out a pimp scene like Jack Hind in The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Does the self-driving car look through the windshield of the car in front of it? Does it see treetops swaying and slow down/correct when you hit the cross-winds on the bridge? Will it back off an uncovered dump truck launching gravel at you? Does it know not to take railroad grades at the most commonly traveled path? Will it run offset in the lane during rain? Does it know how slick the road will be during the first five minutes of the first rainstorm in over a week? Will it speed up to avoid a collision? Does it know the difference between a windblown plastic bag, a squirrel, a dog, and a child and the proper respective responses of ignore, ignore if inconvenient, avoid if not dangerous, and ditch if necessary? Does it know that a ball is likely to be followed by a child?

Parents generally are not prosecuted for their children's crimes. What level of autonomy would a robot need to have for the human most responsible for it to have no criminal liability for actions taken by the robot?

mongbiohazard:Ennuipoet: Coming home from the bar is the only reason I can see for a self driving car.

Almost all accidents are caused by some form of driver failure. Not paying attention, driving drunk, distracted by the cellphone... whatever. And computers potentially have WAY better reaction times than us. The sooner we can take the driving skills of us unreliable, squishy, meat creatures out of the equation the better.

Well, you've sold the logical part of my brain on this. The lizard part is saying, "no way in hell am I getting in a box of metal doing 60 down the road with a machine that may or may not be working properly at the wheel."